


i am reaching but i fall (into your arms)

by TheTeaIsAddictive



Category: Les Misérables (TV 2018), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, after the weird homophobic mess of this series we deserve this, functional boyfriends au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 06:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17657786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTeaIsAddictive/pseuds/TheTeaIsAddictive
Summary: The Javert/Rivette Seine fix-it fic we deserve.





	i am reaching but i fall (into your arms)

Javert was kneeling by the edge of the parapet when Rivette found him. 

“Javert!” he cried out. 

Slowly, he raised his head to face him. Rivette could see two glistening tear tracks in the moonlight. Rivette ran the rest of the way along the bridge to him, slowing awkwardly to a walk once he was within a metre or two. 

“Rivette,” he said. “What are you doing here?” His tone sounded as resigned as ever, to an outsider. But not to Rivette. To Rivette, he sounded _defeated._

“I read your letter,” he said. “Skimmed it, really, but. Well.”

“Rivette, I must ask you again. What. Are you. Doing here?” Javert stood and walked towards Rivette, away from the parapet. 

He stood there, befuddled. “I . . . you seemed -- shaken. Rocked to the core. You let that man go free.”

Javert winced and glanced to the ground. “You need not remind me,” he said. “I have been able to think of little else this last hour.”

Rivette took a step closer. “Javert,” he said, “whatever you may think of that man -- why has it led you to here? To the Seine, with pistol and hat both removed?”

It was as if something crumpled in his face once the question had been asked. “The man is a criminal. He has stolen, and lied, and cheated for almost forty years now.” He tipped his head back, allowing the moonlight to spill over his features. “And yet, at every turn, his nature does not prevent him from acting as a just man. His ward -- the girl who was stolen from that Thenardier? She must have been mistreated, based on how the rest of the family behaved -- and he saved her. That boy he was carrying through the sewers? He was saving him even at a detriment to his own happiness. And I . . . he spared my life, when he had every opportunity to kill me.”

Javert bowed his head. “Such a thing cannot be. Men like him can never change -- men like me can never change. And yet . . .”

Rivette took another step forwards, and tentatively held Javert’s shoulders. When Javert pressed against him bodily, Rivette easily shifted into an embrace. He could feel more tears on the side of his neck. 

“We must be capable of it,” Rivette murmured. “Else why can you, who came from the gutter too, be capable of making things better for others at the lowest strata of life?”

Javert moved away enough to look him in the face, although not enough to break the embrace. “What do you mean?”

“I did read the letter,” Rivette said. “And I know that unless someone is there to enforce it -- someone with your force of character, your perseverance -- nothing will be done.”

“It is impossible,” he said flatly.

“Not an hour ago you told me not to touch you, and here we are,” Rivette said. “The impossible does not apply to the human heart.” 

Javert’s eyes met his. “You think so?”

“I know it,” he said. “And . . . I hope it, too.” He raised one hand to straighten Javert’s collar again. Javert clasped his fingers around Rivette’s. “Your hand is cold,” he said. 

“Of course it is,” he said. “I’m not wearing gloves.”

He turned away to place his hat back on his head and his pistol back in his holster, without relinquishing Rivette’s hand. He glanced at him, half-nervous. “You’re right, Rivette,” he said. “There is work to be done. I thank God, and you, that you allowed me to see it.”

And hand in hand they walked off the bridge, into a new day.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted from my tumblr.


End file.
